They drove in silence, windshield wipers on high, car buffeted by the wind.

Kimberly kept her eyes on the woods. At the towering trees, the nearly impenetrable underbrush. She wondered where Ginny Jones was right now, if the girl had holed up someplace safe and warm, where she could feel the new life growing inside her. Or if even now she was racing panicked down a back alley, danger looming behind her.

“Wait!” Kimberly cried.

Sal hit the brakes too hard. The car careened dangerously close to the center line.

“What the hell-” Sal started.

“Back up, back up. That was a logging road. Let’s take it.”

Sal had the car at a complete stop now. He looked at her as if she were nuts. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s pouring out.”

“I know, I know. Just a quick detour. What else do we have going on?”

“Something better than getting stuck in the mud.”

“He drove these roads, Sal. If he drove these roads, we can damn well give them a try. Come on, we won’t go too far.”

“We’re in Suches,” Sal muttered. “Apparently, that’s far enough.”

He gave her another look, but when Rainie or Quincy didn’t raise any protest, he put the car in gear, backed up along the empty ribbon of road, and hung a sharp right.

The Forestry Service road started out paved, which surprised Kimberly. She had been expecting something more rustic. She was also caught off guard by the number of residential homes, perched on various hillsides, peering out from thick groves of mountain laurel. But a mile down, the pavement turned to gravel and the forest seemed to win the war against civilization. They looped around, slowly descending into a gully, the rain creating a thick, muddy stream that raced alongside them.

They came to a turnabout. Kimberly had Sal stop. And then, before he could react, she’d popped open her door and stepped into the deluge. She was vaguely aware of him protesting. Of other car doors opening. Of Rainie and Quincy joining her in the madness.

She didn’t look at them. Didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. They lived in the same world she did, where monsters were real, and good people got hurt, and you could spend your days feeling overwhelmed, or you could do your best to do something about it. It seemed for as long as she could remember, she and her father had hunted the specter of death. It was probably some of the only moments either one of them truly felt alive.

And then she thought, vague again, in the back of her mind where it couldn’t hurt her as much, that Mac should be here. It had always been her, Mac, Rainie, and Quincy. She missed Mac.

“He’s wrong,” she whispered softly, looking around at the soaring bare-branched trees above, the dense grove of green underbrush below.

“Who?” Sal demanded. He stood in front of her, rain pouring down his nose, plastering his dark hair to his face. He looked intent, angry in a way that should have scared her, except she understood that kind of rage, how it felt when you were trying so hard, only to realize that your best wouldn’t get the job done.

“Ron. Dinchara and the boys are local. They have to be. Ron said it himself: They don’t buy much, so they must already be well supplied.”

“Kimberly, it’s wet, it’s cold, I’m soaked to the goddamn bone. Whatever voodoo you’re pretending to do, stop yanking my chain.”

“It’s a matter of logistics,” she stated firmly, studying the thin vein of gravel road, the tall, skeletal trees, the thick clumps of underbrush that surrounded them. The rain had molded her hair to her skull, was rapidly soaking her shirt. She didn’t care. The rain didn’t matter. The mud didn’t matter. It was all about the woods.

“Killing someone is easy,” she supplied. “Disposing of the body, however, is hard. Ninety-five percent of the time, that’s where killers mess up. Now, we’re chasing a guy who has done this not once, but possibly a dozen times. What does that mean? He’s very good at logistics.”

She had made it to the edge of the woods, where ferns grew high enough to brush her leg mid thigh. She ticked off on her finger: “One, where to dispose of the bodies?”

“The woods,” Sal filled in, less angry now, more curious.

“Okay, so two, how to transport the bodies?”

“His truck, SUV. Plenty of room in the back.”

“Until you get here,” Kimberly countered, gesturing to the green and brown mudbath around them. “Then what?”

Sal nodded, seeming to get into the spirit of things, even as his gray suit turned black and the rain ran in rivulets down his neck. “It’s late at night, or an early hour of the morning-a time where he can reduce the risk of being seen. He needs a remote area, so he picks a Forestry Service road, drives for a ways. Then he pulls over, gets the body out of the back of his vehicle…dumps it down a ravine?”

“Forestry Service ranger would spot it,” Quincy spoke up immediately. He stood off to the side, where he could hear everything while still having the space to formulate his own thoughts. He was good at this game; one of the best. “From the road, you would see trampled bushes, even broken branches. A ranger would get curious about deer, bear, bobcat, whatever, and investigate. One or two times, maybe the UNSUB could get away with it. But a dozen times later…Someone would spot the disturbance and find the body. Especially given the amount of traffic on the roads and in the woods during peak seasons.”

“So he carries it away from the road,” Sal stated.

“Body’s heavy,” Kimberly supplied. “A grown woman is a good hundred-plus pounds of deadweight. Even in a fireman’s hold, that’s tough.”

“He walks downhill?” Sal guessed.

Again Quincy shook his head. “Anything disposed of below can be seen from above, especially in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. This is a popular destination for hunting, hiking, camping, fishing. That’s lots of people trampling through these woods, even in supposedly remote locations. Safest choice is high ground. Above the trails, where others don’t tread.”

Sal looked at the three of them. “I don’t get it.”

“He has help,” Kimberly said softly. “The older boy would be my guess. Whether he’s involved in the killing or not, I’m not sure. We didn’t hear anyone else on the tape. But at the very least, the teenager helps dispose of the bodies. One man walking alone on the trails late at night is suspicious. A father and son on the other hand…”

“They’re out camping,” Sal filled in.

“Explains the large pack they’re carrying, or perhaps pulling on a trundle behind them.”

“Shit,” Sal said tiredly and put his hand over his eyes.

“It would take them hours,” Rainie spoke up, peering into the woods with a keen look on her face. “They’d need tools-rope, burlap, shovel, pick. Then food, water, first-aid kit, compass, the basics. Kimberly’s right; to do what they need to do, Dinchara’s well stocked. Meaning if he’s not buying locally, he has a place all set up.”

“The younger boy,” Kimberly murmured.

“Exactly,” Rainie said, following her train of thought. “The waitress at the Smith House hadn’t seen him, which implies he’s left behind. Maybe he’s too young yet, would slow them down. So they leave the younger boy someplace, then Dinchara and the older boy head off to complete their nightly chores.”

“He’s gotta have a home nearby. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Maybe the girls are even alive when they’re brought up here. Imagine one of those little cabins we drove by, all alone in the woods. Even if a girl screamed all night, or happened to get away, who would hear her, where would she go? A cabin solves so many problems.”

“We can check tax records,” Sal spoke up. “Anyone who purchased homes around Dahlonega or Suches in the past five years. Cross-reference those names with the receipts from the Smith House for Columbus Day weekend.”

“And chase employment,” Quincy prodded. “If they’re up here enough, Dinchara’s going to need money. At least in my day, fifty percent of a single prostitute’s earnings wasn’t that much. So he either has a string of girls you haven’t learned about yet, or another source of income. Given what we know about him, he would make an excellent wilderness guide or-”